Nancy Drew
DOUBLE CHOCOLATE WALNUT SUNDAE
I was primed to be the biggest Nancy Drew fan of all time when I received a stack of the first ten books for Christmas in fourth grade. The year before I had read Harriet the Spy eight times, and as a result refused to wear anything but wide-leg orange pants and striped thermals or eat much besides tomato and mayo sandwiches. The great-aunt who had bought the Nancy Drew books for me was in her mid-seventies and had written on the inside cover of The Secret of the Old Clock, in shaky but elegant script, that she had very fond memories of the series from her girlhood and that I was in for a great treat. I was so excited to get up to my room and crack open those books that at Christmas breakfast I barely even touched the icing-slathered Pillsbury cinnamon bun that I had been anticipating all year long.
For ten days straight I read a book every day, and each night after turning off my light and burrowing under the covers, I lay awake trying to figure out why I wasn’t more enthusiastic about them. Nancy was smart, she was brave and daring and charismatic—she was everything I should have wanted in a female protagonist—and yet somehow she seemed hollow. Instilled with a sense of duty to my great-aunt, who had gone to the bookstore and lovingly picked them out for me, though, I pushed on and finished the ten books, feeling more and more irritated and baffled with each one.
Unlike Harriet, who was very stubbornly her own person, Nancy was everygirl, imbued with talents and virtues so varied that any little girl could find her relatable. This was the Stratemeyer Syndicate’s aim for the Nancy Drew series—to teach little girls that they could be anything and everything, that they could be perfect—smart, brave, fashionable, beautiful, kind, and a darned good cook and house manager to boot. It was a noble goal, and one that girls like me, who grew up never questioning that we could be whoever and whatever we wanted, should be forever grateful for, but when I was a young reader, the idea of striving for that level of perfection only stressed me out.
Perhaps for this very reason I felt immense relief when Nancy’s chum Bess Marvin entered the picture in the fifth book, The Secret at Shadow Ranch. Unlike Nancy and George Fayne, who seem almost compulsively eager to fling themselves headlong into dark alleys with shadowy old men, Bess is anxious and cautious, with all of the appropriate reservations of an ordinary person. While much is made of Nancy’s “trim figure,” and George is described as “an attractive tomboyish girl,” Bess is introduced as “slightly plump”—a description that precedes her name in nearly every sentence for the remainder of the book.
As a young reader I always aligned myself with the tomboyish character in a book—Jo March, Scout Finch, Caddie Woodlawn—but in this case, I found myself immediately on Bess’s side, protective of her because she was the easy target, the underdog, the brunt of under-the-table knee jabs and covert eye rolls from Nancy and George. George may be a tomboy, but unlike the tomboyish characters I loved, she is mean-spirited, always drawing attention to how much Bess has eaten and how slowly she’s moving, while Nancy giggles demurely in the background.
The girls are differentiated not only by their physical appearances, but also by their relationship to food. Food is everywhere in these books, and the way that each of the girls reacts to it is telling of their personalities. Nancy loves to cook (and is, of course, fantastic at it) but cares hardly at all for the end product. Her restraint is epic. She is forever doing things like frosting warm cakes with chocolaty icing but not licking the spoon, and telling Bess and the hungry cowboys that they have to have graham crackers for dessert instead of cake. George is indifferent toward food; she often forgets to eat, and when she does it is only out of absolute necessity. She is always the one making fun of Bess for how much she eats, correcting her on the number of sandwiches she’s consumed or tormenting her by saying things like “Eating is really a very fattening hobby, dear cousin.” Bess is driven and consumed by food; she is constantly “starving” or “famished” or “hungry enough to eat a fried rock.”
When we first meet Bess, the three girls are at a diner discussing the mysterious happenings at Shadow Ranch. Nancy and George order soft drinks while Bess studies the menu and declares that the mystery has her so upset she has lost her appetite, before adding, “I’ll have a double chocolate sundae with walnuts.” At this, “Nancy and George grinned. ‘Poor girl,’ said George, ‘she’s wasting away.’ Bess looked sheepish. ‘Never mind me,’ she said.” These sundaes are Bess’s favorite food. They follow her throughout the series and are almost always eaten while Nancy and George smirk and sip their sodas.
The shame and general weirdness surrounding food in the series bothered me even as a child. I thought about the books for years afterward, wondering every time I saw them on bookshelves if I was the only kid who had reacted this way toward them. It wasn’t until I was in college and writing a research paper on eating disorders in literature that I decided to do some research on critical receptions and feminist readings of Nancy Drew.
My first shocking discovery upon delving into Nancy Drew’s complicated history was that the “author,” Carolyn Keene, was not in fact a real person at all but just a made-up name created by Edward Stratemeyer. The books were actually written by a number of ghostwriters, who were paid a flat fee for their work and required to sign away all royalties and recognition to the Stratemeyer Syndicate. I was also surprised to find out that the original books had been completely rewritten starting in 1959 in order to rid them of racially insensitive language, and also to update them so that they would appeal to a modern audience. This meant that the Nancy Drew I knew was completely different from the Nancy Drew that my great-aunt was familiar with.
The original Carolyn Keene was Mildred Benson, who wrote twenty-three of the first thirty books in the Nancy Drew series. Edward Stratemeyer hired Benson to revive the failing Ruth Fielding series and was so pleased with her work that he asked her to write a new series about a girl detective that would be like a Hardy Boys for girls, and would feature an “up-to-date, modern young lady.” It took me a long time to track down the original twenty-three Nancy Drew books, but once I did I could see why my great-aunt had loved them so much. Benson’s Nancy, while still good at almost everything, is much more likable. She knows how to handle a rifle and wrangle horses, she is confident without the cocky condescension of the later texts, and somehow her bravery feels truer and less like a compulsive death wish.
What’s most interesting about these original books compared to the rewrites, though, is how differently Bess is portrayed—and how differently the role of food figures into the narrative. In the original Secret at Shadow Ranch there is no mention of Bess’s weight. Instead, the introduction states, “Elizabeth was noted for always doing the correct thing at the correct time. Though she lacked the dash and vivacity of her cousin [George], she was better looking and dressed with more care and taste.” There is no mention of double chocolate walnut sundaes, no snarky remarks about Bess’s eating habits. Rather, all of the girls seem to have healthy appetites in the original Secret at Shadow Ranch. They are equally tantalized by “the odor of hot biscuits, chicken sizzling in butter, and fragrant coffee,” washing up quickly so they can sit down to “a table which fairly groaned with plain but delicious food.”
As glad as I was to read a version of the text that wasn’t so fraught with food anxieties and shame binges, I was sad to see the double chocolate walnut sundaes go, if only because I knew how much Bess enjoyed them. I never eat a sundae without thinking of Bess, and I eat sundaes more often than I should admit (I am an independent woman and I can do whatever I want). This recipe is my ode to Bess, my favorite underdog. It has milk chocolate ice cream covered in a thick, warm chocolate sauce that tastes as close as I could get to the Brigham’s fudge sauce I was raised on, and it’s topped with candied walnuts with a healthy pinch of salt and a kick of cayenne.
NANCY DREW
Double Chocolate Walnut Sundae
Prepare the milk chocolate ice cream, candied walnuts, and chocolate fudge sauce (recipes follow). Once all of your components are ready, create your sundae by layering the ice cream and candied walnuts in an ice cream dish and topping with the hot fudge.
MILK CHOCOLATE ICE CREAM
Makes about 1 quart
1½ pounds good-quality milk chocolate, roughly chopped
2 cups heavy cream
2 cups whole milk
1 vanilla bean, seeds scraped out and pod reserved
1 pint (16 ounces) stout (such as Guinness), boiled until reduced to 8 ounces
8 large egg yolks
1 cup sugar
½ teaspoon kosher salt
Prepare an ice bath by filling the sink or a very large bowl with ice cubes and cold water. Place the chopped chocolate in a large glass or metal bowl and set it aside, along with a fine-mesh strainer.
In a large, heavy-bottomed pot, whisk together the cream, milk, and vanilla seeds and pod over medium heat until the mixture is just about to boil (you will see small bubbles forming around the edge of the pot and steam rising from the surface of the liquid). Whisk in the reduced stout and remove the pot from the heat.
In a large bowl, combine the egg yolks, sugar, and salt and whisk vigorously until fluffy and light, about 3 minutes.
Remove the vanilla bean pod from the scalded milk mixture and discard. Transfer some of the scalded milk to a 1-cup glass measuring cup. Slowly pour it into the yolks in a steady stream, whisking constantly. Continue to do this until all of the scalded milk is incorporated into the egg yolks.
Pour the yolk and scalded milk mixture back into the pot and cook over medium-low heat, whisking constantly, until the mixture reaches 170°F. Pour the mixture through the strainer into the bowl of chopped milk chocolate and whisk until the chocolate has melted and is incorporated throughout.
Set this bowl containing the ice cream base on top of the ice in the ice bath and whisk until it cools slightly. Allow it to cool over the ice bath, whisking occasionally, until it reaches room temperature, about 20 minutes. Cover the bowl and transfer it to the refrigerator to chill for at least 8 hours.
When the base is thoroughly chilled, spin it in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Allow the spun base to set up in the freezer for at least 2 hours before serving.
CANDIED WALNUTS
Makes about 1 cup
½ cup sugar
2 tablespoons water
Pinch of cayenne
1 cup toasted walnuts
1 teaspoon flaky salt (such as Maldon)
Spray a baking sheet with nonstick cooking spray and set aside.
Combine the sugar, water, and cayenne in a small, heavy skillet. Cook over medium heat, undisturbed, until the sugar begins to melt, about 4 minutes. Continue cooking, occasionally stirring gently, until the sugar caramelizes to a deep amber, about 2 more minutes. Remove from the heat, quickly add the walnuts to the caramelized sugar, and toss to coat. Spread out the sugar-coated walnuts on the greased baking sheet, using a fork to separate any that are sticking together. Sprinkle them with the flaky salt and allow to cool for about 10 minutes.
CHOCOLATE FUDGE SAUCE
Makes about 1½ quarts
1⅔ cups sugar
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons Dutch process cocoa powder
1 cup corn syrup
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
8 ounces good-quality semisweet chocolate, chopped
3 tablespoons pure vanilla extract
Pinch of kosher salt
Combine all of the ingredients in a heavy-bottomed saucepan and heat over medium heat, whisking occasionally, until the sauce comes together. Serve warm. Leftovers can be stored in a covered container in the refrigerator for at least 3 months. Reheat before serving.